Unknown Speaker

Hi Elden and Hi, everyone out there, I wish I could see your faces, endlessly weird to talk to a computer. But I'm so delighted to be with you all. And I'm, yeah, I'm honored to be in such great company with two minds that I respect tremendously, especially on these issues. And to be with you all on the wonderful things that the International Institute and the program for African studies are doing at UCLA, I have very, very fond opinions of you all, so I'm happy to meet with you all. In preparation for today's talk, we chatted a bit, and we, we were thinking about just, you know, the, you know, not knowing that where the nature is coming, where the where the audience is coming up with this topic, we wanted to kind of assume, you know, maybe some peripheral, you know, media knowledge about, about the Sudanese revolution, in an ongoing fashion, but maybe not super deep. So we're kind of, um, you know, we decided to kind of start off with just getting, you know, feet wet with that. And with that, I think both, especially majesty, and I have a propensity to want to analyze the political economy of things. And we kind of chatted about sparing you all the spreadsheets and some of the richer stuff that we would get into it that and given that I, you are, so instead of kind of jumping into the political economy, deep end with you all, but I wanted to kind of take a chance and bring bring the audience up to speed on what has been a really profound and brave struggle of the Sudanese people. So I'm going to do that to start us off just with some pictures, basically. So I've put together a little slideshow and you'll have to forgive that it's, it was difficult to figure out when to zoom in and when to zoom out, in terms of what part of the revolution is relevant for, for today, for this conversation today. So I kind of it's zooming in and zooming out at random points, I'm going to be sharing some pictures that I've taken over since the what we're calling the glorious December revolution, which began in December of 2018. Some pictures that aren't credited are from people who have shared them for a larger documentary project or on different types of media or to share them with the public. If they are not attributed, it's because people have wanted them to be unattributed. And then some that have, you know, become viral that you'll see. So I'm just going to kind of, you know, share some pictures and tell a little bit of the story that way. In a broad sense, I'm trying to find the screen sharing button. I think I'm getting a little rusty with the PowerPoint, Screen Share, How's that looking for you? Hopefully, not bad. Okay. Um, I'll start with this picture. And I like it, you know, just to kind of zoom in and zoom out very specifically, but you can see people, this is a March, which, which happened in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. And you can just see people from all different types of walks of life, you see, you know, here in the middle, there's, you know, obviously, people wearing flags. For the country, you see someone here with a glove, which is, as you'll see, there's a big component of tear gas, and this glow of likely is intending to help in this one here, to throw some tear gas away from protesters and protect the protesters, you see what I would presume based on this pattern here, a young room, and a new groom, also, you know, participating and walking in. But to take a couple of steps back here. So this is a very, very forgive, you know, very brief history of a lot of things that have happened in the last couple of years. But to the best of my ability, I'm going to kind of share them in a quick rundown with you to bring us up to speed. But starting in December on December 19 2018, you might have seen other pictures in mainstream media about or with, you know, people arriving on a train from other cities, like people even on top of things coming to protest against the regime of Omar Al Bashir, who had run Sudan from his own coup in 1989. So for at that point, the better part almost 30 years, quite violently, quite, fully controlling dimensions of life on many, many fronts for people running the economy into the ground and being basically extricated or ostracized from the rest of the world for 2030. And in his ring for 30 years. The protests began around the country and we're in you know, what, what seems like in the millions counts or difficult counts or something that's continuously leveraged as a talking point. I'll try and be brief.

Unknown Speaker

In any case, protests evolved into the spring and early April, sitting where people were around the clock, lots of activities, whether this was political education, whether this was eating, celebrating many different activities around the sitting, or sorry, around. And what you see here is the military headquarters in Khartoum, where they, where they held power, or works, right where the, where the army had very difficultly in, in very painfully to this day, in June of that same year, the, there was a really violent dispersal or breaking up of the sit in there, which was resulted in a lot of a lot of deaths, and a lot of unknown whereabouts there about, and was a really difficult time. And from that time, flies forward, people were quiet, there was a lot there was internet cuts, phone cuts, and the like. And by the end of June, people saw June 30, it's an important day for insignis history, because that was the day of the Bashir coup, took back to the streets and and began saying, you know, we're not satisfied by this, I'm forgetting a really important piece of this. Forgive me, Bashir was taken out. So the dictator was removed by by the military in April. So for about 10 seconds, the Sudanese protesters were elated. And then they said, and now we'll take charge and have a state of emergency a curfew, all these kinds of things. And quickly, people were like, No, we're not going anywhere until we have what are the demands of the revolution. And to be explicit, they were civilian government was, first and foremost. And then the kind of chants that you hear the most are freedom, justice, and peace. So by the time that summer was going on, it was really sad time, but a committed time, there was an agreement reached by what's called the forces for freedom and change a coalition of people around around the around the civilian side. And some people from the different political parties that were starting to take shape. And with the military, and it was essentially a 5050 agreement, we're going to go, we're going to take, you know, basically share power until, for us for three year phase, which would be led by a civilian Prime Minister, who was brought in for this and be led, you know, by the civilian and have a half civilian half military kind of leadership set up in the meantime. And that was set to change. So the head of this, this council was to be first military and then shift to civilian. Part of leading up to the crisis was that that shift to another civilian leader didn't happen. That said, quickly, if there's one point I want to kind of just say, is that, you know, with this agreement, people did start and a lot of the media around the world started to talk about the Sudanese revolution, as if it was just something that came and happened in a year magically, and went. But even from its first weeks, there was an ongoing participation in a very clear recognition on the part of civilians, that this wasn't a one and done deal that this was an ongoing revolution. So in the immediate aftermath of this agreement, there was definitely a spirit that you hear people all around town saying she put on hold. This is like a slogan even, like, Thank you for coming, and thank you for being here. And huge celebrations. At the same time, there was still an ongoing spirit of protests. So you see, like, forgive this. Some of this is a little mixed about a border, but so he pretty much as soon as you know, as that happened, there was, like I said, ongoing resistance practices, and ongoing strategizing on how to bring about what's the goal of the civilians of the fully civilian government.

Unknown Speaker

And so, I have a collection of pictures, but, you know, just as far as the aesthetics goes, and to hopefully, you know, bring the audience into some of the kind of textures go, you know, there's because of the long history with protests, but especially with or without internet that you've been with or without cell phones. Fires have long been a tradition to kind of mark the beginning of any of the processionary protests, which most of them are, yeah, like processions or marches. So when you see the black clouds that's typically indicative of that you see people rolling the thing, the tires to go get burnt and mark those beginning of the signs, you see some more black smoke here. So this is something that's indicating this as a rallying point for people to know where to come and find the place. Some other, you know, other events as I mentioned, the breakup of the city in the mass occur that happened to happen there holds a really serious place for, you know, for also, for most Sudanese and for many people who felt profound grief from that. And because one of the calls of the revolution, like I said, freedom, justice and peace, justice is an ongoing project, the investigations into this has been something that's quite slow, and something that that the revolutionaries have continued to fight for. This picture, if you can see is actually quite sad. This was just last spring, the sitting massacre was during Ramadan. And so there was actually a protest leading to this 33rd June anniversary. And on that one, a young revolutionary called what Docker so on this yellow, if you see the yellow flag, he was added to the list of martyrs. He was killed by by the forces on this anniversary protest. And so even within weeks, the commemoration of martyrs is a very profound and serious dimension of, of the ongoing revolution. And it's a commitment for the people who are participating to say that, you know, they need to honor them, and that they have, you know, paid the price and that they're, that they're going to, you know, see their sacrifice and continue fighting so that it's not in vain. It's a very strong, strong and common thing going on. Another image that you might be seeing are types of images. These are called terrorists, they're roadblocks that that revolutionaries can put in, depending on the issue, depending on the day, but for whatever reason, when they want to kind of close down and protect their neighborhoods, or to sometimes even to just show that that there's, you know, that it's the people who live in these areas who have control who are more in the business of governing. So different types, you see them made out of all types of materials. But whatever it takes to close down the road, whether that's from, you know, oncoming forces, I could go into lots of depth, but I think I might just kind of kind of more quickly breeze through some pictures so that we can get to the current speed. So the transition period has sent since the time of that, we'll just say 5050 agreement that transitionary agreements, and the constitutional declaration has been fraught, it hasn't been easy. One thing that I can say having had the pleasure of getting to spend a lot of time there, and it really is an honor to witness all of this is just an ongoing, you know, ongoing, committed populace, whether these are young student populations, whether these are elders, high high levels of civic engagement, which impress me as an Angeleno as an American, and, in many terms, lots of lots of action on lots of fronts, from many different demographics, and especially what's notice what's powerful, and I think what my students will get to pick up on a little bit more on a theoretical level is the the youth especially in this. So, you know, leading up to this moment where a number of agreements, the on the peace dimension of, of the revolution on the peace demand of the revolution. In December, sorry, in October, in the fall through the fall of 2020, was an agreement, what's called the Juba peace agreement, which brought together not all but several of the yet unfinished conflicts in Sudan, some of the armed leaders and and made some, you know, made some agreements with them, which brought them into this sovereign Council and kind of broaden the scope of of their participation in government. There are a number of other factors which I don't

Unknown Speaker

try to figure out. Okay. A number of other factors, including the US, this might seem odd, but I'm someone who's not going to be too rosy, necessarily about the role of the United States. And I say this as someone currently in the United States as someone. But as I'm not always optimistic about the nature of the role of the US in all these fairs and one of the big transformations was was removing Sudan who had been on the list of saints state sanctioned terror. State station states SST state sanctioned terror list, removing it with, with a price of paying back some aggrieved terror victims, and joining joining the Abrahamic accords and normalizing with Israel. During the same period, there were lots of economic reforms, which most people and some of the protests during this interim period have been, or seen as something that the civilians brought about. Some, you know, these painful but necessary was the was the tagline at the time. And lots of people like that young and old were quick to recognize and be skeptical of international institutions and some of these kind of neoliberalism, or neoliberal austerity measures, including taking off subsidies from gas and life became quite expensive. There were lots of questions around whether whether or not things are becoming tougher and seeing that relationship happen. So So in general, the atmosphere was very fraught, such that even on in on the 21st of October, people said, Okay, we need to have one of these massive, massive protests to kind of show what they thought there were rumors of a coup, show the leadership that you know, like, don't forget, we're still out here. And we still insisting on civilian government. And what happened, as I'm sure you've heard of in some semblance, but we heard, you know, in the middle of the middle of the night, a bunch of the civilian leadership and including we try and quickly thereafter, the Prime Minister hum duck were arrested by the military authorities, the Internet was cut from more or less from that day, and very quickly, from that hour. And even despite this, really, you know, I showed you those statuses before, despite the internet, like I said, and despite the confusion of all of this happening in the middle of the night, I think people were so you know, ready to engage. There were protests and crowds, and tons and tons of marchers ready on that very morning, even just having heard you know that this very much looks like a coup at that moment. Still no word from who came to be, you know, responsible for this, which is the military leader. We can just say, Braun, this was a picture that I thought was, this was when he finally first show his face and people were asking, Okay, so it's in Egypt, we want to start kind of naming geopolitical players here is in Egypt and trying to figure out this, but he much later, or later in the day, once people had already been out in protesting already barricading their streets, he says, and so this is the logic of the coup leadership. And from that point, they've been saying this is a this is that we need to get the revolution back on course, this is a correction. In some ways. Yeah. So this has been the line to the international community, this has been the line to the Sudanese. And in all of this, the logic has, or the kind of argument or the the messaging has been, you know, we still plan on on having elections, we still plan on transferring power to civilians, but it really hasn't looked that way. Almost immediately, we started seeing the response on the street saying, you know, we, we, we don't buy this 5050 thing anymore, we're not willing to we're not willing to get into one of these brokered negotiations from outsiders anymore, we don't we there's a profound skepticism of outside entities, which I think were validated based on the, you know, the wake of the coup, and to see how frankly, soft most other nation states who were trying to broker this, these types of agreements were. And so the kind of strong message of the street all this time has, has been, you know, no negotiation, no partnership. And so these are the these are classically the three knows. Since then, there's been I don't want to talk too long, but I'll just say there's been waves of violence in the immediate phase. Until, for about a month, basically, it was a very, very violent and scary situation, tear gas. These are tear gas canisters, and this is how people kind of trace the locations and the origins of it. I'm going to actually not watch or I tried, I learned finally how to make videos, but we're not going to do this but

Unknown Speaker

you know, very, very violent repression and I can't believe that I forgot to mention one of the most important dimensions of the protest movement is that it's a validly and committed Lee peaceful. So all these people are going up against depending on the time and depending on the orders, tear gas being shot, not just in a way that burns skin and eyes and breath, but also used as projectiles as as if there were as if their guns, they've also been facing like bullets. There's typically in these protests, the kind of frontlines they call them. Angry boys is the is the name but these guys who see themselves as protectors so that people can protest lots of different responses since then. And yeah, I guess what I want to just, yeah, kind of I'll pass the mic and then we'll come back I think more after after we can hear from wonderful majesty. But to say that there's lots of people yet one People doing rescues. You know, things are certainly changing. It's been four months tomorrow. Since the coup, there have been millions and millions of people through what what I'm sure much you will talk about more this resistance committee information sharing protest, strategizing, securitizing infrastructure. And that that is developing from the grassroots and developing in very powerful ways. To up to this point, and there's, I would say in this moment of great skepticism around so this is says unit Hamza, you initiative, one of the many brokers of are attempting, attempting to negotiate peace, negotiate some kind of settlement politically about leadership, and so forth. And then beneath this, the Arabic is saying that just fall the freedom and change the people who, the civilian side of the transitionary agreement, but that's no longer valid. And so what we're coming to see in, in this time is actually that these resistance committees that have organized is I hope, you can see at least just some of the visuals from in such, you know, robust ways to mobilize people to learn how to participate into joining the movement, now, being looked at as a voice and a potential inroad for, you know, political transformation. And this is something that's, you know, for observers of any kind of revolution, I think it's something really quite profound, but that I can make comments later. But let's, let's just hear from Ashley because he's a wonderful.

Alden Young

Thank you so much, Crystal. That was really helpful. Much Lee,

Unknown Speaker

I should I, alright, thank you, Alan, thank you for the invitation. It's lovely having you. And Crystal is thank you for the kind words on my behalf. I don't have any pictures to show you, I'm afraid so you'd have to just put up with my face. And then I'll pick it up from where crystal left. She said he mentioned the United Nations Mission in Sudan. This has a nice acronym, the United Nations integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan, these bulky names, so you'd have to get used to them. If you're doing Sudan, we had several UN missions in the past 20 years or so. They are two famous ones, one in the forum, and one in Sudan. And when Sudan split into two countries, it supervised that process. So there's an of course there is a long history of United Nations aid and involvement in Sudan that goes back many years. So there's a bit of a an institutional history behind this UN engagement in Sudan, though, if somebody is interested, you might go into that. But this last mission came up during a moment of crisis, with a response that sounded very much like the response it had delivered when Sudan was at war in southern Sudan, and when Sudan is at all so in another region in therefore, and the answer is to the two parties to sit together and talk it out in some form of negotiation, whereby nobody wins everything and some sort of sharing arrangement is reached. And this, of course, is preconditioned on to things that there is no accountability. And that's why Sudan's long record violations and violence goes and accounted for, because the answer is usually if you want to take this politically forward, and we would have to forgive each other in a way. And, of course, the people who do the forgiving and not necessarily the people who are doing the dying, and Krista knows this very well. So the United Nations the answer to the to the change of government, and our tune to this creditor, happy 20th October is to say, well, the people who carried out can sit down with the people who pushed off and talk it out in a way and reach a new arrangement. A new constitution arrangement where both sides share power in some form. Of course, the whole idea of a coup is that you don't want to share power. And the whole motivation of the coup was to obliterate the possibility of sharing power in any meaningful sense. The whole idea of the coup was to impose a veto on the political process in Sudan. And this is a distinctive type of coup. Sudan has seen many clues in its history, this time around people who don't know the country for any reason, get terribly astonished about coups and how come and why and why does it happen. But a coup is established technology of changing government in many countries. And you've seen, of course, the idea, the coup has made a bit of a comeback, now that the world is not dominated by one power. So you can see it in West Africa. So do a series of queries to place in their documents. And Sudan joins that in a way it is. It's restoring its good tradition. And the last 25th, October is a is a, if you divide these schools, there are two types. And it falls into one type, which is into my mind is the key of the Commander in Chief, when the chief of the army says I'm stepping in, it's not like some junior officers are plotting to get rid of their state, it's like the head of state himself deciding to enforce a page. And this effectively took place already in April 2019, when the military officers pushed off Bashir, but at that point in time, they had to share power with this powerful Street Movement that crystal is talking about. And they waited it out until the moment was ripe to get rid of this unwieldy partner. And what the United Nations is telling people to do now, and it's a process carried through by German diplomat who is the head of the mission is asking people to go through a process of consultation. And at the end of these consultations, he's hoping that some sort of

Unknown Speaker

some sort of framework would be reached, and on the basis of that framework, talks could be initiated on the basis of these talks and new constitution arrangements arise. Of course, as you can see, all this is built on the idea that on a quite a political idea on the fact that people would just give up on their struggle, and, and, and sort of punch down and accept the status quo and, and sort of back back off the streets effectively, and give up whatever the demands they've been raising. The problem with this approach, this, to my mind, very technical approach to resolving a political problem is that it does not involve the types of ideals that these young women and men are prepared to die for it involve accountability, it doesn't involve any justice process. It doesn't involve restoring constitutional freedoms or rights, human rights or political rights in any form. It is as if you're begging these rights of the the lap military officer. And, of course, somebody might say, Well, why doesn't Why did not western country step in and do the better job of pushing off the military in the wrong in the right direction. Western countries were involved in many ways, but the price of changing the political system in Sudan is very high. Because it is premised on an unequal economic system and economic system that relies on basic commodities produced. Most of most of them are produced in Sudan's rural areas in places like Kordofan. And therefore, that you might have heard of or might not. Some of it reaches America, like arabic gum Sudan is the biggest producer of Arabic film around or the second biggest, depending on that harvest year. And our Begum is the stuff that goes into Coca Cola, and sweets and many other products that are sort of favorites of Western countries and others. And despite the sanctions regime that was imposed on stamp ideas or become was always exempt, because it's a necessity. It's just like aluminum has been exempt today from the export import ban of the US in relation to Russia. So when commodities matter, they they are exempt from these types of politics. Now, the point I want to make is that these products are made in the poorest parts of Sudan and these parts of Sudan are going hungry. Very hungry. And this hunger is a chronic as a chronic feature of rural life in Sudan, people who make a lot of money, but don't benefit from that money because the this money is captured by the state, the state is based on a narrow, mostly urban elite. It goes to service and this discrepancy between the town and the countryside, just the heart of in my mind is at the heart of Sudan's long crisis is that these over bloated cities are living off the poorest people in the country in devastated countryside. And the systems of production in Sudan's countryside are becoming highly militarized. So they've they've had military features before but since the emergence of large scale militias that operate globally, like the rapid support forces, which Krystal might have mentioned, and I've missed, and this is a militia formation that emerged during the war and therefore and and now does not sit in there for now it sits in the government palace next night.

Unknown Speaker

And, and this militia formation is in a way, Sudan's contribution The technologies of repression. So it's like it's the as big contribution to how to repress a real population. And this militia operates across borders. So besides Dan, it's operative in place like Yemen, also very important devastated place to operates in a place like Central African Republic in alliance with the Russians. And in a place like Yemen, in alliance with the Saudis and the nice Arab Emirates. So it's, and in a place like Libya, with Libya, strongman and its operates in Sudan. It's a way of, of controlling rural peoples and populations with cheap guns. So you don't need big sophisticated guns like the ones Bhutanese shooting you can. You have four wheel drives with mounted machine guns, because you're facing villages who grow sorghum, or who grow or harvest arabic gum, or who mine superficial gold incidence gold planes, you're facing unarmed civilians, and to snatch the necessary portion, the portion you need their surplus. You do it by military means by controlling production systems, controlling trade routes, enforcing taxes, skimming off profits from whoever is making them. And of course, controlling one of Sudan's most important commodities, which is goats and sheep and cows that make a lot of good, good meat that is exported to places like Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates and other Arab Gulf countries. And that explains some of the regional conflagration around Sudan. These are the interested parties. These are the parties that have interest in Sudan. And their interest is not in democratic form of government. Their interest is in Central State that is capable of capturing profits from Sudan's rural producers, which means that they want to perpetuate that system. And Sudan has, despite the fact that this highly entrenched and very militarized system of production and extraction, Sudan has seen many, at least three big revolutionary upsurge is the third is what Crystal's been talking about. But they were precedents before. And each few every few generations, every few generations, some event like this happens, where where people sort of rise up against this, this highly volatile and highly extractive system because it's in a moment of crisis, like the moment in 2018, when Bashir was not any more capable of financing the city in a way, he wasn't capable of paying the necessary monies to support bread subsidies or fuel subsidies, and the city was going hungry. But Sudan is much more hungry today. Now the one of the few useful things us ID has ever done is something called famine, emergency network. Early farming and early famine warning system and early famine warning system has been talking about a hunger crisis in Sudan over the past three years. Its predictions for this year is 14 million people. That's one in every three people in the country is going hungry. And if you look at the map of and they're talking about crisis, levels of hunger and crisis levels of hunger means that you don't have you cannot support your daily dietary requirements. And you need to get rid of not get rid you need to sell basic assets to eat. And basic assets for an American might be sort of a car or something but if you're a villager in could van basic asset is essentially a hole or maybe some kitchenware or a bicycle that you use to get you used to go to marketplace. So people are or go to an extra built where you get milk for your little kids. So people are monetizing the few mega assets they have to feed themselves.

Unknown Speaker

And if you have any interesting statistics Sudan has one of the highest inflation rates in the world. inflation rates stance hovers around 300 In the past year, and this year it went dipped a bit down. The currency has been depreciating continuously just in the few past weeks, the currency took a deep 10% dip, and it now stands $1 equalling 530 Sudanese pounds. And I devaluation at this speed that happens means that everybody is living on a salary seized his income depreciating month by month. So it is a terrible and deep moment of crisis. It's also a moment of counterrevolution crystal talked about the revolution eloquently which he didn't talk about is these technologies of repression. The counter revolution us is to suppress these types of sentiments. Now stands revolutionaries, however, arrived at the formula, there is a terrible interest, I think, not only for Sudan, but beyond its borders. And they arrived at a way of organizing themselves that the wasn't known before. It's it's really a new invention of December 18. And you've seen some of that, in the pictures that crystal showed. And that's what we're in Sudan are called resistance committees. Now, both both words might be a bit misleading. So somebody might ask, what are they resisting? And somebody else might ask, what what do they mean by a committee? Now, a committee in English keeps the sense of an organized structure where, where the members are clearly known. And you can listen on my list and say you're a member, you're not a member, you belong, you don't belong. And that's not really what it is. It's it's very much in a walk in paying and open access system, you can belong, move, join and not join, depending on relations of trust, and relations of trust premised on the moral economy and not a moral economy in the sense that you, you you join the committee where people know you from your own neighborhood, and they know you as a person, they trust you and they rely on you. And I think these types of relations are what most observers find mesmerizing about Sundance 2018 19 experience, because they see people forging a tighter relationship, there's not a common one in a highly individualized society, where you just rely on somebody who's in many ways a stranger. And, and you give him your back in a way. And that's a slogan that crystal might've heard on Sudan, optimum streets, so people are saying, Don't give your back to the army, give your back to the street. And the street is somebody, you somebody who joins you in protest, but you don't necessarily know him person. So these these, these new, these ethics of revolutionary experience, I think, very much interest. This way of organizing the public beyond established political parties is also of interest. It's also a form that is attracted in 1000s of young women and men into political activity in what crystal termed civic engagement. I think it's not just because they want to be engaged, I think they have fewer options other than engagement. You must know that since since the beginning of the revolution, in 18, this coincided also with COVID, most of that young generation has been out of university now for many years, their studies, studies have been cut short, in a way, their prospects immediate because they can see that the prop, the usual prospects are graduate with employment on a salary. The salaries really don't mean very much anymore. The depreciation of the currency meant that the you're not looking forward towards a job, where you get a salary, the way that political activity has been organized. And the exhaustion of the political class meant that the old forms do not satisfy you, and you're looking for new forms of engagement. And also the simple fact that 1000s upon 1000s of young women have joined this movement in ways that were impossible in people of my generation, let alone those older, I wouldn't have thought that even possible, I would see this number of young women who don't necessarily come out of political homes, usually the type of women you'd see engaged in that level of activity would come out of the traditional politics because the family was politically involved there. The father brother was putting both but now us because of the new form of doing politics through the resistance committee means that 1000s of people can sort of join this

Unknown Speaker

very precarious way of doing politics in other ways. And at times, it looks very chaotic. And to be honest, and it looks as if it doesn't have it, it doesn't know where it's going. And that might be true, because it's all on an experimental field, just like Sudan was an experimental field field for the emergence of militia as a form of government. It is today an experimental field, I think, for the emergence of this type of street level and neighborhood level organization is a way of doing politics beyond the political party evolved. And I think that might be something of relevance, not only for Sudan. Of course, it is interesting, but it's also I think, a relevance of people beyond to Dan's borders. I think I'll stop here before I continue rambling on and on. Adams got questions from Adam, do you want to

Alden Young

hold? Thank you so much. Thank you both Midgley and crystal, those are both, you know, so informative. I think Well, I think I'll ask a few questions. And then hopefully, people in the audience, I know we can't see you. So it's always a little awkward. But for those of you in the audience, please continue to put questions in the q&a box. First, I wanted to start with a question of, you know, and this is a question for both of you. What does revolution mean, in the Sudanese context, I mean, I think a lot of us have an idea of revolution, those of us sitting in the US have an idea maybe of the American Revolution, some of us think of like the French Revolution, but we we only think of revolution as a kind of single decisive event. But I was wondering if, if either of you would be willing to talk a little bit more about what revolution means and the Sudanese context?

Unknown Speaker

Crystal when silent, this means I have to take on this terribly difficult question. Start right. I think it's a very good one. I think it's a great question. So thank you for that. I think what we're, we're in the country passes evolution are two things. One of them is, is is, is a form that isn't very much current today. So the people don't have a mind. But it informs a lot of the bravery, a lot of the ethics of revolution. And that's a rural interaction. And the prototype of that, of course, is the madness revolution is the 80s 18. What was the 1880s. And the baddest revolution was a grand national level uprising informed by religious ideas. But in essence, it was a movement against that, to my mind, it was essentially a big revolt against a system based on depth on entrenching debt relations. There was a revolt of a wide peasantry in Sudan. So the most of them were peasants, or were, were heard this against a commercialized system that was based on that enforced by a foreign power. And this revolution in Gulf, all of what is today known as northern Sudan, it didn't pass very much into southern Sudan. That's very true. But the entire the idea of a northern stand as a single unity was formed during the my distribution. So most of the ideals of this organizing and joining and even the ethics of martyrdom, that crystals touched upon the idea that people were dying for a cause. And that cause, although it doesn't necessarily take me to heaven, but it's, you know, the madness revolution it took you to happen. But that cause is sort of informs that the sort of the will and the drive of these very young brave men who are facing bullets on the street, just briefly said there's a lot you would I experienced, I saw it myself. So the young man was standing in front of machine guns and telling the soldiers to shoot and, and this, this, this notion, that if, if, if a great number of us die, this will redeem us, goes back to the, to these Matisse days. And a lot of the and even I think the performative features, some of the performative features that crystal talked about in the protests, the flags, the waving the, the chance to sing, it's a lot of that has roots in that era of Sudan, the idea that the once an important person dies, this will redeem people and also comes back from that, that has roots in there, and even some of the musical tunes that Krystal might have heard while she was in the protest sitting you when you compare them to sort of what is known in popular culture In Sudan, they fall very much into the prophetic chanting tradition, the idea of the hyena and others the tune of that the is an old one that people are drawing on and if you if you visit a Sufi shrine in Oman or visit a big color outside of Tomb even you will hear a lot of these, you will hear a lot of the sounds that they are remade in a modern context in so the secular context in evolution. So you can see these linkages the, the strange positions of the secular drawing from sedans rich Sufi, and religious tradition and madness revolt. So I think that's that that informs a lot of the, of the sacrifice. The second form is the urban the urban revolts of the urban uprising and Sudan has two major urban uprisings in 64 and 85. And the political form that that takes is usually these broad coalition's of professional associations, trade unions, all what the city has to offer, essentially, all these modern forms of organizing, combined, and in both precedents, they were instrumental in the initial success of revolutionary changes. They were also instrumental in the defeat. That's why you you read on that, on that sign. The Crystal showed

Unknown Speaker

people demanding the political coalition that came to power thanks revolution, demanding the two should fall because they were disappointed by the political performance of their civilian leaders. And and that disappointment isn't is a feature that also comes back dates back to these two precedents. So I think the rural insurrection and urban revolt are the two forms that these types of changes, and both of them happen in moments of crisis, a successful rural insurrection was, was one idea that the rebels in southern Sudan had in mind when they thought they could take on costume. But no, none other than them. It succeeded. Nobody else has ever done, done. It didn't recur, it didn't happen twice. It happened once since dance history. And the entire operation of Sudan's military machine is essentially dedicated to preventing that happening again. So that the strategizing of the military the way that the military is deployed across the country, even the fact that the military command sits right in the heart of the Capitol, is is, is a part of response to this to this fear of an urban rural insurrection. And I think the winning formula for a different Sudan would probably be uniting these two forms or linking them together, the ruling direction and the urban revolt. And the contradictions between them are in a way at the heart of the events of 25th. October, is that you have people who had come in through a peace process, and were rebel fighters, before where she fell, siding with the military against the urban civilian led sort of revolt. And this contradiction is is sort of is I think, the Achilles heel of 2018 2019 is that these linkages, despite the performance talking about it all the time that we need to link these two, three years, that linkage didn't happen. And the discrepancy, the difference between these two spheres is firmly rooted incidents political economy, they are in a way, a reflection of what I've been trying to explain to you is that certain cities live off this poor countryside. And the imbalance between them is reflected in different ways of doing politics, different ways of organizing different ideas about the state. And this makes capturing the Central State and controlling it's such an attractive option, because that's the only route to manage the system of extraction. The only route to sort of maintain this is to cut off a slice is to have a position somewhere in in cotton. So instead of beating the state, you end up like many of Sudan's rebels joining it in a way. So you start off saying you want to get rid of this, this oppressive extractive states and and and dialectics are an interesting thing, especially in these times of war. And you end up to the doing exactly what you said you wanted not to do you want it to end. And many of Sudan's rebels, I think ended up in that position. They came to power. They were confused by Sudan's urban revolt. They were confused by these young women and men that crystal described. They didn't know what to make of that they've been fighting Bashir for 20 years plus. And then came this moment of change. And instead of joining it, as as compatriots as comrades, they ended up working against it, because their short term interests were linked to the Central State and the Central State welcomed them in Central State open its arms and said people who held guns can negotiate their way into power. And people who don't have guns don't have a place around the table. More or less. Does that answer your question?

Alden Young

No. They That was a very beautiful answer. Thank you so much. Crystal, do you have anything you want to add on that? Or do you want to talk a little bit about forms of civic engagement that you also, you know, as you've been going back and forth to Sudan over the last few years? You know, I mean, you talked a lot about civic engagement. But I was just wondering if you had any other things you wanted to say about the types of civic engagement that you saw? Taking place?

Unknown Speaker

Yeah, I mean, like I said, I showed the the, the picture asks stuff for each of those pictures. And there's plenty more of the, you know, the protest, there's plenty.

Alden Young

Oh, we lost it for a second. This volume? Oh, my goodness. Well,

Unknown Speaker

we're back. Okay. There's Yeah, so for all the protests, pictures, there's plenty more daily, if not multiple times daily actions on the part of not necessarily, always within the structure of the resistance committee is I think, I love that you said that, like, what is the, you know, committee is this a regular group. But outside of outside of that, you're seeing all different types of actions, whether these are organized by as much he said, different types of workplaces, lots of different strikes and workshops and political deliberation in terms of issuing statements on many, many kinds of industries, teachers, unions, to telecoms, to all these different types of how do we use what our network is to say something, do something and so forth. You see lots of, I mean, frankly, like street level, like having tea and bring in a speaker and someone from a different age group in a different city in brainstorming session. I mean, you really can't walk five feet without people, whether in a formal way, or informal way, discussing this and trying to figure out how to organize and who to connect, to do these kinds of things, also through the university system. And so I mean, these are, let me put it this way, when I showed some university students, there are some protests of like, for instance, are what I felt like were large Viet BLM protests here. They were like, That's a protest. Like, that's, you know, that's student organizing, you know, they were like, oh, plus, like, you know, debates, and yeah, debates and trainings. Also there. And I think there's also a lot of engagement, I think a lot of people, especially the youth, I think it's, you make a really great point about the difficulty, especially for this demographic, a lot of especially in the cities, people who have, you know, it takes a long time, in most cases, because of so many university closures and so forth, but who are, you know, have wonderful minds for this stuff, trying to figure out professionally how to engage this. And so one of the kind of interesting civic engagement, things that you see, in Sudan, and you see in different types of contexts where the international community has offices has interests, you're finding more and more working with these kinds of large international NGOs, or whether they're the foreign aid arms from other governments lot. I mean, you see these sprinkling up, whether they're in the name of democracy, development, and environment, so forth. See, a lot of people who are, you know, would definitely consider themselves part of the resistance trying to find their place and jobs, so that they can support the work by working within this kind of broader international NGO, international, you know, whether it's from non government or governments type of work and find ways to plug those in ways. No, definitely. You know, many resistance companies have official statements that say, like, we don't take money from foreign people like that. And so I think there's an ongoing conversation about how to find, yeah, how to make the most of those kinds of next Nexus sees in the presence of all of this, you know, generically, you know, what support democracy type of international money that's to be gotten around there. And so that's also something I find. Interesting. I don't know that that speaks to the original question about what a revolution is. But

Alden Young

no, no, that's, that's very helpful. Thank you so much, that we have so many questions, I guess, coming now in the q&a. I was going to ask a few more questions, but maybe I'll just turn to some of these q&a questions. The first question I think, is phrased as is Sudan, a primarily Muslim country, but I think maybe we could think of that actually. We didn't talk very much about the role of religion, I guess, in the current in Sudanese politics at the moment. And so I don't know if anyone wants if either of you want to take up the question of religion are Islam in particular, I suppose in the current in the current Sudanese politics

Unknown Speaker

I feel like I'll answer that more. I don't know if I'm going to do a good job with that. Do you feel? How do we even know who's going to answer that better? I think in the content like definitely, yes there. Islam as an important force and important social force and important part of people's lives. The Islamists, as you hear them colloquially as a political entity, as a political party, largely under the banner of the NCP, the regime of Bashir. There's some, I don't know, so that I don't know how to say this gracefully. There are some Islamists who are there, and we're card carrying members. And there's lots there's now some kind of splintery para party type of Islamist as a political organizational feature, who are there because of, of their beliefs. And, in my estimation, and I think in many others, the Bashir regime, exploited Islam and exploited a lot of a lot of believers, too. You know, it was a nice convenient front for an extractive regime, kind of leave it at that. These, by the way, to, you know, to bring us up to the present tense by the way, one of the features of the transitional agreement was that members of the of that of the NCP party were to be removed from all government offices, which, if you can imagine having, you know, fed your family off of that for quite quite, you know, for as long as you can remember, might not have been the most pleasant undertaking, you know, to be basically ostracized from works. I kind of wait at that match. Did you want to add something? That's

Unknown Speaker

that's a difficult one. I mean, you need to see the brighter chapter to answer that question. Yesterday, indeed, Sudan is in Muslim majority countries. I mean, the majority of the population today is does believe in Islam. But Islam is not one monolithic one monolithic entity, it Sam is multifaceted, like any other religion. I think one lesson not only sedans to revolt, but the Arab Spring in general, is that what was believed after in the era of the war on terror, the Muslim majority countries are not capable of imagining democracy or freedom has been debunked complete. The people dying in the streets, many of them strongly believing Muslims, but they were not dying for they were dying for, for their freedom. And, and these things shouldn't be understood in contradiction. I think it's not very helpful. For the Western readings in a place like Sudan to place these things in contradiction. People will draw from religious resources, like the ones I tried a bit touch upon, withdrawal from, from religious heritage sources for emancipation, as much as you can draw from religion sources for pressure, it is it's a very pliable thing, you could have a very pro commerce reading of the Sharia, which is the dominant reading in Sudan for many years. And you could have a Sharia that talks the language area is such as the legislative structure to the jurisdiction and law in in Islam, you would have a reading of that, that is promarket. And reading that is that you could easily fall into a new Liberal mold. And that was essentially what Bashir did for many years, he used the grammar of Islam to support an extractive system. He used Islamic themes, Islamic points, Islamic ideas also to forge a market economy was very, very extractive. And on the opposite somebody might my might see in some of the elements of this type of belief sorts of emancipation. And they are, of course, during the 2018 19 Blow up of things in Khartoum. 1000s 1000 flowers blossom, you had all sorts of ideas on the streets you had I even saw NHS flags, was quite an impressive thing to see in certain people's waving energy slugs in a place like so you can see the Muslim majority countries don't necessarily have to live by Islam. Islam is just one element of their, their lived experience. And I think one should be a bit more subtle about it. But of course, indeed, that is a Muslim majority country there is no that shouldn't be shouldn't be misread. And one, one source of the clue. And the people who support it is that it's drawing around anxieties coming from conservative Sudan about change. So it draws from these anxieties, anxieties about changing the emotion involving the role of women in society changes, changes that are involving the relation between genders changes that are involving how do we imagine property law? How do we imagine family law, and these themes all came up in different ways, because it was a time of revolutionary feeling. People were challenging, established norms, and we're trying to imagine things in you, they might not have succeeded. But there was a brief, I think some of that moment is still some of that opening is still there, there was a period of time, when everything was a bit up for grabs, people were rethinking relations between the genders relationship between generations relationships, relations of property, they were thinking marriage contracts, there was challenging all these things. And that that caused a great deal of anxiety in in conservative Sudan, is the what is happening is the world changing all of a sudden? And I think, although today's rulers are not very, very pious, I mean, Brian is a hard drinker and big friends of Israel, they don't care about other Muslims. They're not necessarily very, very Muslim in the sense in the pious sense of the word. But they are feeding into these conservative sentiments and presenting themselves as protectors of conservative Sudan, and conservative Sudan could be anything, you could imagine it like sort of a bit of a Republican culture, it's all about anti abortion and preserving

Unknown Speaker

traditional family relations and objecting to new gender roles, these types of themes, these social themes, the social content of the 2018 19 changes.

Alden Young

Thank you so much. Thank you, both of you. Now, we have a question from Veronica Nanavati. She asked, How did the neighboring countries of Sudan react to the resistance of the protest movement? Was there any international reaction to Sudan to military coup? This military is taking away civilian government taking away the freedom of the people? How was Sudan capable of developing a military coup? I mean, I guess it's a loaded question. But I guess, in general, maybe what was, you know, can we talk a little bit about the neighboring countries reactions to the political developments in Sudan?

Unknown Speaker

I think so that is in a rough neighborhood. And it doesn't involve a lot of democracies, when they were the big inspiration to change, is it 2018 and 19, was the grand example of the Egyptian revolution of 2011. People don't talk about it a lot. But it's implicit in what in the imagination in imagining what is possible. And, of course, you all witnessed, the counter revolutionary wave in the middle east began with the with CC school. And then you had the turn of events in Tunisia, and then you had 10 events caused the events that happened in the Arab Gulf. And the reversal of these fortunes is linked up to that, and Sudan is tied up in its major patrons in the region, Arab Gulf countries, Saudi Arabia and UAE, both of them have absolutely no interest in any form of democratic. And it would be completely insane to imagine the Arab Gulf would would subsidize a democracy that just doesn't make any sort of sense. And the closest neighbor is Egypt in Egypt is very anxious about a successful example of transition to democracy anywhere close to it. And because that would mean that the possibility of 2011 hasn't gone. That that that possibility is still open. And Sudan's military, in many ways, is is modeled around. It was born in the hands of the Egyptian military. It's essentially an Egyptian creation. And Alden knows a lot more about that than I do. So it's it's it's, it's, it's made in Egypt. Sudan's military is an Egyptian creation and its ideas it's it's even its if security and sort of strategy doctrines are firmly wielded into the Egyptian system. And I've had the chance in clan this time in a big lobby, which where I look very different from how I look now, to read some of the thesis of military officers because they graduate in this war college and they write thesis and these theses are all premise And on an idea of the mind security that reads very much like a copycat of a copy of Egyptian notions of what what the Nile security should look like. And you can see that also reflected in in incidence position visa V. The Ethiopian done. Although for a point for a while there, under the under hamdok, Sudan was contemplating a pro European position. This idea was killed once military came back and Sudan so the firmly went pro option in matters related to the Ethiopian dam. And I think that's the outlook of the Sudan's military forces. And, and I think it is an outlook that makes them now, members of a security architecture that involves a powerful pair like Israel that involves a minor player, a lesser player like Egypt, and involves very deep pockets like the pockets of the UAE, in Saudi Arabia.

Alden Young

Thank you so much. Crystal, do you want to say anything else about that? Or maybe? Oh, no, go ahead. The dumbest thing to add, actually, I was gonna ask. Oh, yeah. So please go ahead. And I want to also ask if you could maybe use this as a time to say anything you want about the US role and the Sudanese transition?

Unknown Speaker

To me? Yeah, I mean, I think in general, we've seen from, you know, the, the US the West. Really, really soft responses. I think the the one thing that the United States has done, I mean, they've tweeted a lot, they've had some press releases that have, at the beginning of the coup, we're encouraging people to you know, and this was driving Sudanese people bananas, was to go back to October 24. And pretend like none of this had happened. And part of the point and part of the like, why so many in, you know, are resistant to negotiation in partnership at this point, which, again, is that kind of the political reality aside like, is that, you know, we can't trust them for their word, like, we have this agreement, and they've gone and broken it. And so there was a certain tone deafness. And I think there still remains like a massive tone deafness on the part of not just the US kind of whether it's, you know, formal diplomats, or whether it's, you know, heads of various committees, with Twitter, and so forth, kind of pushing towards, let's just go back to the Constitution and call it a day. In practical terms, there's, you know, as my G said, there's a lot of interworking of relations that the US has with all of these other nation states, that have been, you know, discussed, the United States gives tons of Egypt and Israel, of course, has very strong business interests with Saudi Arabia, who really benefits been, you know, from, you know, weak Sudan. So there's lots of different factors beyond that, in direct practical terms, the one thing that the US has done up to now has been pulling back this large, large proportion of the USA ID foreign aid, stuff that was that everything basically, that was aimed at kind of supporting the government to transition has been pulled as a sort of, you know, stick and a carrot that this can be resumed, once you will get your act together and get back on the democratic path. There's been, yeah, I'll leave it at that. So that's been one thing that's happened. I know that there's certainly and there's, I think, a lot of skepticism, you know, I'm mostly I start off with more apologies than any, you know, pride in being in America when I'm there, or being from being from America. And that to say that, I think there's, you know, profound, profound skepticism about, you know, the US, even, you know, potentially supporting some of these kind of anti democratic, anti civilian actors in too robust of a way and that they could use these as instruments to turn the tide toward democracy if the US really was interested in promoting democracy. Like it says, it is right. This is the question when the US has the spoken principles and doesn't comply with them, doesn't actually live up to them or, you know, put its money where its mouth is. So but what but one thing I will say that I have consistently had, many many Sudanese people say is that, you know, more or less Mind your business, we don't want your lip service. However, if if whether through Congress or through Biden himself, is able to enact targeted sanctions, so not the sanctions that were so tough on the entirety of the country, for so long, but targeted sanctions on the coup leaders, and especially there's, you know, aspirations of designating RSF as terrorist and seeing if that specific targeted sanctions, that's something that I do see and hear a lot of support on the ground for from at least for as far as it goes for United States participation in things that potentially civically minded American youth might want to, you know, engage?

Alden Young

No, thank you. Now, we have a question from Ben, Ben Carson, which I think might be targeted to you mostly. You say that the tumultuous I think, I think when he says you he means much, much. He says that a tumultuous disputes over central power in Khartoum boil down to infighting within the ruling bloc over who spends earn earnings and how Juli 2021 in class, we have recently been discussing participation models, such as participatory budgeting, which establishes a neighborhood council who helps organize and voice the opinion of their community, and gives them power within the local government budgetary process, similar to the effectiveness of the resistance committees, I believe that this method of participation could potentially solve a large number of the interconnected challenges and conflicts in Sudan, such as conflicts over overspending power, and economic stability. Additionally, this form of organization could reduce ethnic tensions, and the access of differentiation that are often employed in Sudan. What are your thoughts on the feasibility effectiveness and the possibility of implementing participatory budgeting? And Sudan?

Unknown Speaker

terribly difficult question. I honestly don't know. I mean, I think all these are very interesting ideas. But I think the the heart of that is the notion that local you could have some sort of autonomous or self sufficient local government that would carry itself in a way be that at council level or neighborhood level, and that would involve some sort of open form of democracy. That's a very powerful notion, but I'm not sure how it will work in a place where to buy bread you need to sell gold. To buy wheat you need to sell to buy wheat for for city neighborhood, you need to sell cows that are living hundreds or 1000s of kilometers away. And that are owned by by a PA herder makes. And these cows make per animal $120. And they are sold in Egypt, they make one $20. And they are sold in the prairies of Kordofan for $15. And the differences profit is schemed by a long chain of middlemen and properties and companies and firms. And it's that type of money that you use to buy the wheat that places bread on the table in a cotton neighborhood. So you need to think about how such localized ideas of democracy or budgeting, how they work in a market system that is based on on raw commodities based on pathway schools, primary producers, people who don't really produce anything industrialized, but something it's coming right off the land and then goes to the market. So you didn't have to think about that I don't have on I wish I had answers to these I can explain now problematic things I'm very, very bad at coming up with, with answers all the knows all these answers. He's he's written a whole book about answers. So you can ask him?

Alden Young

No, thank you. Crystal, do you have anything you want to add to that? Okay, well, our most popular question seems to be from Ron Advani. Now we have all this new technology so we can see, you know, which questions are being popular in real time. So Ron Advani asked despite high levels of surplus extraction, taking place in rural areas, arabic gum, livestock, etc, if I'm not mistaken, a lot of the first wave of revolutionary mobilization in 2019 centered around the urban professional associations such as lawyers, doctors and engineers associations. What were their main grievances of the urban groups? And I guess you already spoke a little bit about how the alliance between the urban and the rural was, was, you know, has been one of the aspirations of the revolution, but has been very difficult to realize in practice. So I know we talked a little bit about this already, but I don't know if either of you have anything else that you want to add on the grievances particularly of the urban groups.

Unknown Speaker

And I I think I think I think that's a very, very good question. And it brings you closer to how problematical This is. And how difficult how was it she told oh, there it is to up and this type of system. To my mind, the main ingredients of the urban group was part of it was consumption. And part of it was, was ideals. The consumption element is interesting for materialists like myself. And it involves the Sudan after discovery of oil in southern Sudan, Sudan was able to live for 10 years, around 10 years of considerably large oil profits that were extracted by very, very violent leads through a civil war in southern Sudan. And this ways, consumption levels in a place like cotton considerably. Middle class expanded, people are making more money, they were spending more, they were spending more on cars, on refrigerators on air conditioners, they were acquiring, acquiring lifestyle, and also a level of consumption that I, for example, as a child never experienced, they know that we didn't didn't have a car, never. This wasn't an item that you thought was part of normal middle class life and customs. And the separation of the independence of South Sudan meant that Sudan lost its main source of foreign earnings. Suddenly, Sudan was faced with a severe monetary crisis, the severe financial crisis, part of machines deal with the sort of urban real was that he was capable of financing very, very cheap bread, and very, very cheap fuel through a system of subsidy, the System Assessment he was funded through the oil earnings, when oil went, you had to live subsidies of fuel and of bread, which meant that the social contract that kept the city satisfied was in a way broken. The social contract social contract was premised on you let me do whatever violence I need to do in the countryside, and I give you cheap bread and you feel and it worked for many years. And with the loss of oil in southern Sudan, that formula wasn't working anymore. But she had attempted to sort of refuge the situation by a campaign to extract gold from wherever it was found. And this worked for like around a year. And then they were multiple political crisis involving therefore but also involved in relations with Southern Sudan was by then independent South Sudan that made this impossible. By 2018. Sudan was in deep financial troubles. They were cash cash shortages, they will shorten your fuel division to your bread. And the first sparks 2018 actually caused by a tripling of bread prices in urban centers. And the first sort of protests were protests against increasing bread prices. And the President 2018 took place in 2013. When these bread prices increased, at the time, she'd had enough military capability and political capital to expand. So he called on the is the militia that is now running government to fire at protesters in Khartoum. And they did when he called upon them to do the same thing in 2018, they switched sides and got rid of him. So you can see that, that this the urban crisis is in many ways. The change of government is a reflection of urban crisis. So when whenever it becomes impossible to feed the city, you either send snipers on the street, or you change the head of government. And you can see this pattern, recurring incidents history, it's the same thing that happened in 1985. In 1985, Sudan was in a deep financial crisis, foreign earnings were being expended based mostly on financing bread, wheat purchases for cheap bread in the cities. When he made he wasn't able to keep the system going. Military got rid of him through a pallet scoop. And in response to popular revolt, and that's more or less the same thing that happened in 2018, with the delay of the school from April 2019 to October 2021. But it's technically the same formula happening again at the moment of urban crisis because the rural extraction system wasn't putting enough money into the state coffers to fund very expensive, expensive urban tastes.

Alden Young

No, thank you so much. Crystal, do you have anything you want to say about the urban crisis? Okay, so maybe I'll have take a final question from Professor Ed Keller, which may be a difficult question, we will have a few minutes. So the final question, the two presenters were quite informative about the uprising that has been going on in Sudan, since Khartoum, Sudan since 2018. One calls a surprising a revolution, and the other describes it as a coup. And so I think maybe we're talking about two different moments here. But my question is out of the uprising in Sudan, are there elements that we could really consider a revolutionary movement? Or several such movements that have emerged? And can we identify a leadership or vanguard of the revolution? If we know the answer to these questions, we can have a better chance of putting our finger on what the implications of these uprising might be not now and our overtime, any ideas? I guess he's maybe a chance for final comments.

Unknown Speaker

I will always defer to you much D. I always want to hear you first.

Unknown Speaker

You're very optimistic. Oh, I'm not? I don't know if there is a wise answer to that question. But I think the frame of the question relies on a sequence of events that happened in the 20th century, and were a bit in a different world, to the idea that the revolutionary movement would be led by Vanguard and Vanguard, we take power. And once taking power with enforced new relations. I know that very well, it's my political education. But I'm not sure if that formula is what we're living through now. I mean, the events of 2011 in Egypt didn't follow that formula very much you didn't get you didn't have this band God, and God's leadership. Maybe that's the weakness of these movements. I don't know that's a way of thinking about these to think that the lack of Vanguard is a weakness, the revolutionary element, I think, are in three spheres. And that these are very clear in my mind, the one the first is in the social sphere, people up ended gender relations, they challenge gender relations openly frontally actively, in their everyday lived experience, it wasn't something that the feminist will talk about in in sort of their in, in webinars, it was something that people experienced in in new ways of thinking about the feminine, masculine in public life, and in private life. They were challenging these relations. And I think that's a revolutionary element. You can see also in the way relations, generational relationships were being challenged, you had sons and daughters will usually defer very much to parents in sort of Sudan's very patriarchal order, you can see that the patriarchal malls were being challenged. sons and daughters were telling their parents to fuck off simply, and they wanted a different world. And, and they were ready to take steps towards that different worlds and live it in a different way. And so you have that element of challenging patriarchal relations, generation relations, gender relations, and I think probably that is the the political dimension of 2018 19 might probably not succeed, given the power of forces against it, that force is stacked against it. But that's social changes that is there to stay. The idea that these things are changing these relations changing there, something else is coming up. I think that idea is the these these lived experiences are not going away. Very soon, it will take a lot of repression, to knock these sorts of ideas out of people's hands. And you can see it also in the economic sphere, because although they asked the right questions, but they didn't have the right answers, because the answers are like the,

Unknown Speaker

the I don't know, I forgot your name. But the person who wrote about participatory budgeting people wanted a more equal more equal relations of property. That's the their imagination, they were talking about more equal relations of property, they had no idea how that what that would mean in real life and how they would, how would they how would they turn that into a lived reality, but the idea is that they there is an idea, there are new ideas about equality. There was also an ideas that challenge the very, very oppressive racial order in Sudan. Sudan is quite a racialized society where there is a racial hierarchy. And, and the lived experience of the revolution, in many ways was was was trying to reorder that and to challenge it and to frame it in different ways, by the type. Thanks, essentially To the resistance committee because the resistance committee allowed new relationships between individuals who otherwise would never have had that interrelationship, who would never have would never would never have interacted. This includes people who crossed the racial barrier in interesting ways. For instance, the resistance committee meant that a student who would usually be from a middle class privileged family would have to work together with the simple market laborer. Because they're in the same committee and they're organizing protests, the simple labor would usually come from one of Sudan's many oppressed peoples would come from a different racial order or together, but they discover each other is as the old term his comrades, his comrades in a different in a different environment that is instructed by these relationships by these labor relations, but structured by a new religion of equality. For examples, Khartoum street sweepers at the height of the revolutionary events, organized a big a big strike, because they were demanding better pay conditions. The street sweeper is essentially all from sort of the more of Sudan's many oppressed peoples from the Nuba Mountains in South Korea, the final southern Sudanese who are now not even citizens, and so on. And it was the resistance committee that took up that cause. And and they were relations of solidarity in my iPhone, were not, I were very surprising for me to see that happening to see that level of solidarity between what is many instances is very much a student movement, based on enlightened students who went to school and people who had no schooling at all, and had no experience in the school system and can't even write their names. But you can see those solidarities emerging big thanks to the revolutionary element if you like. So you can see that in the, in the, in the, in the economic sphere, in the political sphere, of course, he was a complete deadlock. People, he wanted a new world, but they only had they had old language for that new world, they had the language of constitutions and liberties and human rights, they had this liberal language, the I think many people continue to use today. And it's it's not a very inspiring language. And that's probably one reason why most of what the civilian side of the government was doing, didn't really get anywhere, because it didn't captivate people, it didn't win people over it was very technical. It's all about establishing norms and standards and procedures and form it's a very procedural way of doing democracy. While the street activists are coming from an experience of democracy that is

Unknown Speaker

lived one where you debate, you make a decision, and you enact, where you withdraw representatives, wherever you like, where there is no electoral procedure, in the strict sense that that, of course, despite there being people who are elected, but you had the right to recall it, every minute, resistance committee can recall its representative from every superior body whenever it wants. The electoral system that the political parties were proposing, was very different. Most of the young people who were drawn into this movement don't have an immediate experience of party politics, and are very disillusioned about party politics. But they haven't yet invented the political form that will replace that. And and I think your question about Vanguard is, is a good one. But I don't know if that's the right. If that's the formula where how, maybe that's the missing thing, I don't know. But I'm, and maybe, because it's missing, everything is succeeding, because or not succeeding, it depends on how you perceive it. But in many times, in many instances, the The deficit is the source of success. And I think the deficit of the vanguard in 1890, meant that this movement was able to continue, because you couldn't put it in prison. It's impossible to put an entire social movement in prison. You could take members and put them in prison, but they they're not leaders didn't have a leader. That's why the idea of the United Nations consultation process states is floated now is falling on deaf ears. And it's a bit meaningless because they assume that there are seven or eight or nine or 20, or whatever people who lead this movement and who can speak in its name, and who can make political decisions in its name, and this doesn't exist. This is fantastical. This, these few individuals are not there. They just don't have they don't have that authority. None of these protesters has the authority to decide. So this Cephalus feature is in is definitely a weakness. I understand that that could be described as a weakness, and I think it is a weakness. But it's also the source of its continuty in a way, in a very paradoxical way. It's the source of its traction and power with young people who don't want authority to are very averse to authoritarian odors and structures who don't want to hear people older than them even six months. Tell them what to do. They think You think they know what they're doing? And, and, and that and they're daring, that knowledge and they're taking that risk, and they're dying for it in a way, so I'm not sure if anybody can tell them, they would have done it any better.

Alden Young

Thank you so much. Crystal, do you have any final thoughts? And then I guess we'll wrap up

Unknown Speaker

just to say something for 10 seconds, because I know we're over time. But no, that was a very beautiful, I think parting comment from you. And just yeah, the taste that that since just, you know, since the beginning of this revolution that's ongoing, even despite the coup, I think, the period before the coup, there's definitely a spirit that you hear one of the main there's many taglines, many poems and many chance but I would say of this era, since October has been you know, there's no going back. It's impossible to go back is the basic concept that we've had a taste of these freedoms and for people who, like you said, I think that was such a perfect way to end it have this embodied experiences. There's no, it's impossible to go back.

Alden Young

Thank you so much. Thank you both. I think we all learned a lot and I think it was really helpful to think about, you know, what revolutionary politics might mean in our contemporary using sense Sudan as a glance, you know, for our contemporary and our future. Thank you guys both so much, Crystal and muddy

Transcribed by https://otter.ai